Continuing from last weeks Birding tour of the red centre around Ayers Rock (Uluru) in central Australia, my wife and I set out mid-morning in 35°C heat to do the popular Mala Walk (named after the Mala people its original inhabitants) along the western side of the The Rock. We were immediately alerted to the loud noisy chatter of huge flocks Zebra Finch in an alarm flurry moving from tree to tree. This made us curious as to why all the comotion. Our first thought as always is to look for a raptor in the sky, but none was seen, and then we spotted nearby in a tree what appeared to be the cause, a beautiful Collared Sparrowhawk (so we think after much checking of features). The reason being, this bird is easily mistaken for a Brown Goshawk. We saw several of these birds on the walk…

A more experienced birder on raptors may choose to differ. The questions to ask are is it a glare or a stare? Is the tail rounded or square? Is the middle toe greatly or mildly extended? etc etc. My wife and I laboured over this bird with various books and photos for over an hour and remain open to either name, whatever it be for us is another lifer. We even conceded that we may have seen both species of bird, as they are both found here. Click on photos to enlarge them.

Oh yes, back to those Zebra Finches, from left to right, female and male in the foreground. These tiny birds can exist in huge flocks and live well in the desert eating grass seed and flying insects. The lack of water here has possibly caused them to flock during Spring. Zebra Finch are being used all over the world in current research into bird intelligence, due to their easy breeding and learning skills. Here are some the shots we took of the flock, it was too difficult to catch movie clips of them.

Zebra Finch (4males+1female)

A flock of finches is called a charm of Finches, and charm us they did! There excited call was quite loud as they passed by in flight, like little bullets shooting through the air.

Charm of Zebra Finches Uluru

Charm of Zebra Finches resting

Interesting as it is Finches, Budgerigars and some Parrots do very well in the hot arid desert regions. But some of the comoner birds seen on the south east coast of the continent are also here. This includes two subspecies (races) of Magpie, the Black-backed and White-backed, the latter being found mainly in Southern states of Australia.

The Pied Butcherbird, Magpie-lark (PeeWee), Crested Pigeon and of course, Willy Wagtail (which we see every where we go in Australia) were also found here.

It was lovely to see the male Mistletoebird in several locations around the resort and the rock. There was quite a lot of mistletoe growing in the desert gums. We did not see the female, so maybe she was nesting. We see this bird from time to time west of the coast.

The only parrot we saw was the Galah, which was in small flocks grazing at the resort grounds on grass seed. These are usually in large flocks in central as well as coastal regions, but more so inland.

Galah

As the morning heated up and became midday, we noticed this woodswallow alone in a tree, and on closer view realised we had sited another lifer, a Black-faced Woodswallow. .

Nearby we saw a pair of Dusky Woodswallow sitting on a dead branch in the heat. Woodswallows also survive well in arid regions of Australia, being mostly insectivorous. These birds are often seen huddled snuggly together in a row on dead branches.

Dusky Woodswallow

Dusky Woodswallow

Dusky Woodswallow

Last week I showed a slide-show of the various colour changes of Uluru throughout the day. Here are some of the unusual rock formations found around the base of the rock. See how coarse the rock is. It is said that if a person falls off it, by the time they reach the ground below their skin is so stripped from them they are unidentifiable. These caves served as shelters for the traditional inhabitants. Climbing the rock (a very sacred site to its original inhabitants) is not appreciated by the indigenous community, and is only allowed under perfect still clear weather conditions. Climbing the rock will be banned from October 2019.

Early the next morning we drove some 52 km from the resort to Kata Tjuta (known as the Olgas) another beautiful vista of rock similar to Uluru, much of which lies beneath the desert. It is the arkose rock, course grained sandstone rich in feldspar that gives it is magical luminary properties. We were wanting to beat the rain storm and check out Walpa Gorge for birds. There is usually water in the gorge stream but it was dry. Here is some shots of Kata Tjuta…

Despite the dryness birds could be heard flying about mainly the Grey-headed and White-plumed Honeyeater I showcased last week. There were several nests in trees at the mouth of the gorge.

The wind blew relentlessly as we walked into the gorge at around 30 to 40 km/hr, we could barely stand up and walk forward. Finally in the gorge the wind passed over. We saw this desert wild flower growing up out of bare rock.

Desert flora

Desert flora

After much pursuit we finally tracked down our last lifer, a quite unexpected find, this Western Bowerbird. At first I saw the female hiding in a tree some distance in the gully. She eventually saw me and flew into the gorge to thicker inaccessible thich bush.

As we watched we saw a smaller flash of bright yellow follow beneath the same bush, which we thought to be a juvenile. Within seconds a larger bird flew and landed in view, with its back to us, watching us, just in front of the bush which may have housed the nest. I only managed to get these shots of him. Note the male below has a pink nuchal crest, which is smaller in females and not present in juveniles.

Recent research has shown that these bowerbirds are sensitive to the ultra violet end of the light spectrum, enabling them to greater visual appreciation than we have. Similar to the Great and Spotted Bowerbird it decorates its bower with white objects like shells, feathers and pebbles or anything it can steal from humans.

It was lovely seeing the floral emblem of the Northern Territory, the Sturt’s Desert Rose flowering while we were there. This flower appears on their state flag, as does the Southern Cross star formation peculiar to our southern skies. This can be seen well here and the huge white ribbon of the Milky Way on a dark desert night.

Sturt’s Desert Rose

Northern Territory flag

Lastly let me show a sunset during a desert storm over Kata Tjuta…

To finish our desert birding adventure, we ponder on the Sparrowhawk/Goshawk sitting quietly in the tree watching the Zebra Finches. We know that Finches are food for the raptor and that by flying in flock (as a charm) they are protecting themselves. They must listen carefully to the call of the flock, sometimes in frequencies outside our perception to know when to fly and perch, it could be a matter of life and death. They seek out water and food as a flock even as the streams and ponds are dry, they survive and flourish together. This confuses the raptor as he looks for a stray member or sick bird to pluck from the flock.

No one is ‘a rock or island’ in response to Simon and Garfunkel’s song I am a Rock. We are all vulnerable when alone, we need to have a charm or flock of good friends and people around us who encourage and help lead us into good places in life. I once heard a helpful hint which I share as a counselling help: Always make sure your Balcony friends or acquaintances outnumber your Basement ones. This means keep check that the people who you spend time with and speak into your life and share experiences with are more the encouraging, helpful sharing type than the selfish, needy. use and abuse negative type. If they are negative it may be you who needs to speak positivly into their life to help them correct their behaviour, as a true friend should.

“Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.” – Proverbs 27:6

“The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.” – Proverbs 12:26 (NLT)

“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.” – Proverbs 17:9

“There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.” – Proverbs 18:24

Have a wonderful week my dear friends. Just to let you know I have been asked to stay on in my medical work for another month to assist in training staff, so I am waiting to see what God has for me at the end of the year. This has delayed both my transition to partial retirement and also the writing my second book, which will most likely be an ebook. The bird guiding proposition appears to have fallen by the way.

If this is your first visit to my blog please check out the rest of my website through my Homepage and menu.

I was greatly blessed to receive a very extensive review of my new book “What Birds Teach Us” in a post by Jen an American blogger who purchased my book here online recently: “Birds, Blooms and all things Beautiful”

You might like read it (click on link above) and also read more reviews and information and purchase your copy through the security of PayPal on my BirdBook page.

You may wonder why this Yellow-throated Miner is my feature photo, well it has a history. When my wife and I went on our first holiday together we were not aware that we both loved birdwatching, but when I saw her get excited seeing this bird I realised and so we shared that we had a common interest, which to this day has been a wonderful hobby we share together as ‘recreational birdwatchers’ or more accurately birders. We were returning to our first holiday place Uluru a.k.a. Ayers Rock. the world’s largest monolith (single rock) sitting in the red centre desert region of central Australia’s Northern Territory [Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park].

Uluru from the air

Most of this rock lies underground but stands 348m high with a circumference of 9.4km. The feature which draws people out to the desert other than the unique bright red pindan dust soil…

…is the colour changes that take place during the day of this very coarse high iron content rock. Here is an example I put together of shots throughout the day…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The other fascinating feature of this desert is the amazing enduring Desert Oak tree, which is able to withstand drought, fire, extreme temperature, poor soils and grows about 10mm a year making some the trees well over 1000 years old. They send down roots over 8 metres to the water table. The juvenile trees look like feather dusters the mature trees have seed cones and look like native pine or Casuarina. The native Australians sometimes use this tree to get a drink of water when they cross the desert.

Desert Oak at various stages of maturity

Where do you stay in the desert you ask? when you can freeze at night and boil by day. We had days of 35°C in Spring with afternoon thunderstorms. My wife loved the fact she could swim in the Sails in the Desert resort pool. Oh yes, it is Voyages Resort in the Desert, since the nearest town is 468 km away in Alice Springs. Beautiful Ghost Gums were planted around the resort attracting many birds, these are native to the coast of NW WA.

The beautiful Ghost Gums of the North West.

Birds you say! What birds live in a desert you ask? and this was one of the reasons we came to find out. The first bird we saw in large numbers around the resort was the Yellow-throated Miner which is just as numerous and aggressive as our Noisy Miner back down on the south east coast. It is the dominant bird here, and looks much like its noisy cousin. It tends to drive other birds away from the flowering native shrubs and Ghost gums. Click on pics to enlarge them.

Interesting enough, the greatest variety of birds were Honeyeaters around the resort. Again you ask: “How can that be your in the desert?” This proves the old adage ‘If you build it they will come’. This applies to our own backyards also, if you plant nectar producing native plants you will eventually attract the birds. Most birds enjoy nectar, flowers and lerps. Australia has the most amazing nectar producing plants and trees which produce lots of high energy (sugar) nectar in the poorest of soils. The next most numerous noisy bird was the White-plumed Honeyeater…

White-plumed Honeyeater

White-plumed Honeyeater

White-plumed Honeyeater

a tiny gregarious inland honeyeater which forms very into groups often seen playing and perching together, calling excitedly to each other as they feed. Honeyeaters often experience a nectar feeding frenzy which is known to cause some aggressive behaviour between and within nectar eating species. Australia has the largest honeyeaters, and the most aggressive birds in the world, including the most dangerous. You might get the impression in some of the next shots that some poor fella is getting nagged at by his lady, but the bird on the left with the pink beak is actually a juvenile bird, most likely complaining to be fed. The black beaked bird on the right is the adult parent.

However, the greatest delight was to hear and see the rarer Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater. This bird can be heard in feeding frenzy high in the Ghost Gum flowers, loudly calling to each other, early in the morning as the sun rises, before the miners have taken over and driven them off. here is some footage of their peculiar call.

I so enjoyed hearing and watching these birds calling in the morning and watching as they busily fed on the tree blossom, calling to one another in constant communication. They have beautiful blue eyes.

When we drove out to ‘The Rock’ (as commonly known by us Aussies), we were both hoping to find some lifers and had asked God to show us to them. One which we were hoping to find was the Grey-headed Honeyeater, which is only found here in the northern inland desert regions of our continent and occasionally on the NW coast. We were blessed to find a pair in the heat of the day near the Mutitjulu Waterhole, which was currently dried up. The brown background is the Rock itself.

I managed to catch one Grey-headed Honeyeater eating lerps from the bottom of a leaf. The lerps can be seen as white crystalline sugary covering of the psyllid insect, which birds love and is one of the main foods for many birds, causing some species (such as the miners) to prevent other birds from accessing by patrolling particular feed trees using aggressive pack like gang behaviour toward other birds. This can eventually cause the death of eucalypt trees as miner birds mostly only harvest the lerps and not the psyllid insect, which other birds also eat, thus causing the tree eventually to be over-run by the insect and die. Pardalotes lessen the stress on our native plants by eating both lerps and psyllids, but these our tiniest birds, are easily driven away, injured and killed by the larger aggressive birds. Many These birds have developed a way of removing the lerps without removing the insect beneath.

Removing lerps from beneath gum leaf

Removing lerps from beneath gum leaf

It is not difficult to deduct our lesson for life from the above action of miners whether they be Yellow-throated, Noisy or Bell Miners, their aggressive controlling possessive behaviour ultimately causes the death of the very source of their food. This highlights the principle of what goes around comes around – a universal principle. Greed eventually consumes the greedy, and the selfish who exclude others and manipulate and cheat for their own gain. Those who follow this course in life will eventually be left alone excluded by others to die a lonely sad and shameful death. Jesus said it well:

“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” – Mark 8:26 (NLT)

The antithesis of this behaviour is echoed again in Jesus words which he showed in his own life and death.

“Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” – John 12:25 (NLT)

This does not mean we have to hate ourselves, it means that there is more to life than us, there are others who need to live also who need love, sometimes more than we do.

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” – Ephesians 4:2 (NLT)

Have a wonderful week! We are so glad to get rain for a few days, even if winter has returned which will be good for Spring nesting.

If this is your first visit to my blog please check out the rest of my website through my Homepage and menu.

I was greatly blessed to receive a very extensive review of my new book “What Birds Teach Us” in a post by Jen an American blogger who purchased my book here online recently: “Birds, Blooms and all things Beautiful”

You might like read it (click on link above) and also read more reviews and information and purchase your copy through the security of PayPal on my BirdBook page.